DK's in 5.2

First of all, let me say that I hate these threads usually, so I feel kinda dirty for posting one! Here's the story;

I have played a rogue for my entire wow career, up until MoP. I raid in a semi competitive 10man (usually around world 250, so we clear content just not in a rush)

I switched to Monk to open up the Rogue spot to a fairly good app that we had, I felt it was time to move away from rogue and after playing Beta from the start I was happy with Monks.

T14 has been utterly mind numbing, the Monk rotation is boring me to tears and it is only getting simpler with buffs to the class. Don't get me wrong, I like that they are tuning the class but it's just going to get 'easier'. I like a level of complexity with the rotations, I'm a min-maxer and Monk just doesn't allow for that.

A recent change to our roster means that we have no Plate DPS. As such I'm looking at swapping class in 5.2.

So that takes me to Ret Pally, DK, or Warrior. The main contenders are DK or Warrior. Ret pally historically doesn't appeal.

I've done some research into these classes but it's always best to get information from the proverbial horses mouth.

TL;DR Question: How are DK's looking in 5.2? Is unholy playable or is frost still the way forward (do either classes have their advantages)? How are the rotations to play? is there much to watch? What are the major weaknesses? Impressions, perspectives etc welcome!

I agree totally with the above but to add to it: Unholy is going to be viable in 5.2 due to some QoL changes and the loss of the frost friendly set bonus. DK's (imo) have always been DPS viable, maybe not competitive with the absolute top end but nearly always viable in PvE.
Weakness really comes in the PvP side (for me): I find that I struggle to out-dps a lot of things that other melee just lol their way through.

DK's are fine and will continue to be in 5.2 (PvE, I don't do PvP). UH is getting a few QoL that will make it less of a hassle to play, frost will stay the same. Frost (particularly DW) will still be better on cleave fights, which are plentiful in T14. Not sure how the fights are looking in T15.

Is unholy playable or is frost still the way forward (do either classes have their advantages)? How are the rotations to play? is there much to watch?

As people above have mentioned, Unholy is getting some awesome quality of life improvements. The contributing factor to the spec/rotation/what-to-watch will always be pet micro management. If you're not a fan of Warlocks/Hunters/Micro-Managing Pets, which there are many people who detest that play style, then I would avoid Unholy. Little Timmy/Hulk Timmy is a key component to your Unholy DPS.

Frost will still be fine, either 2H or DW.

Originally Posted by Zik3l

What are the major weaknesses? Impressions, perspectives etc welcome!

I've played many different classes over the years, including a rogue and plate DPS - I would say that one thing I love about my DK is: the class is fun. I really love being able to solo (seemingly everything) content for fun or profit. I also feel like the flow/feel/play-style of the DPS specs is engaging and the class has a fun "toolkit". (I don't pvp on my DK, so if that's a contributing factor your decision I cannot attest to the class in PvP terms)

... That being said, my warrior was my first 90 and has been my "main" through the initial months of MoP. While I do like my warrior (I do not enjoy tanking on my warrior, strictly dps'ing) it has it's limitations. They have great mobility, solid DPS, 5.2 brings hopefully some improvements for Arms PvE dps, self healing for questing/dailies is good, but I just find the class to be boring at times. I never felt that on my DK.

In case you can't look at that site, top parses have a score
Fury 103.9k
Frost 101.6k
Ret 95.5k
Unholy 85k (not a lot of parses so bad data)

Al parses look like
Frost 72k
Fury 70.8k
Unholy 70.7k
Ret 67.7k

Basically they all perform within a small margin of each other so you need to pick on the other aspects of the classes. I would look at what buffs/debuffs your raid has, if you need a battle rez, what tokens the other raiders are on and if you will need to OT or OH. Don't forget to look at things like skull banner and rallying cry or anti magic zone and mass grip, etc. At the end of the day though, since they are all so close together in terms of DPS output in a 10 man setting you should play what you want to play and can have fun with. (funny how that almost always ends up being the answer)

Currently I think between Rallying cry and Skull banner warrior wins out. Mass grip is really nice but we have 1 + 2 Vortex typhoons for mass add control, and void zone doesn't seem to be much of a help at all.

My main question here is the fun side. I work full time so leveling both is a little out of the question and I rarely have time for PTR testing. I know that neither are a GCD locked class and I don't really mind that, but how do you guys feel when raiding as DPS? Is it a 'complex'* rotation? Is there a lot of min-maxing?

2h Frost is about KM proc management, doing your best to use KM procs with Oblit is moderately challenging and partly RNG. A lot of the time you will get a KM proc when you're swinging your FS already and it will munch it.

Unholy is mostly about micro-managing timmy. As long as you're happy banking resources and watching timers (timmy empower) it's relatively easy to just spam SS mindlessly while you're at it .

Currently I think between Rallying cry and Skull banner warrior wins out. Mass grip is really nice but we have 1 + 2 Vortex typhoons for mass add control, and void zone doesn't seem to be much of a help at all.

My main question here is the fun side. I work full time so leveling both is a little out of the question and I rarely have time for PTR testing. I know that neither are a GCD locked class and I don't really mind that, but how do you guys feel when raiding as DPS? Is it a 'complex'* rotation? Is there a lot of min-maxing?

* as complex as wow rotations get

DW Frost with Blood Tap is actually very close to GCD capped, and it doesn't stack haste. The "rotation" is a little more complex than "spam HB." There are definitely times when you can screw up and your dps will suffer a bit because of it.

It's could've and would've. Not could of and would of. Not sure when "of" started meaning "have," but everyone who thinks it does needs to go back to school.

A lot of the time you will get a KM proc when you're swinging your FS already and it will munch it.

This makes me cringe.

Get Quartz, pay attention to the swing timer. Put it somewhere highly visible. So not start a FS until after a melee attack. This is what separates DK's from each other. Don't want Quartz? Look at the number on your screen, only swing after you see a white hit. They're not hard to spot.

It's harder to "get right" than 2H as managing your unholy runes separates a good DK from an average one.

Originally Posted by Damyou

2h Frost is about KM proc management, doing your best to use KM procs with Oblit is moderately challenging and partly RNG. A lot of the time you will get a KM proc when you're swinging your FS already and it will munch it.

It's less about KM management than you think, people have pretty much proven that you can ignore KM and just carry on with your rotation - as long as you're not slap-happily spamming frost strike down to 0rp whenever you have runes you could be using on Obliterate then just don't worry about it. A swing-timer can help but not using frost strike when you should be using Obliterate is a better idea.

Originally Posted by Damyou

Unholy is mostly about micro-managing timmy. As long as you're happy banking resources and watching timers (timmy empower) it's relatively easy to just spam SS mindlessly while you're at it

Again, pooling some resources for DT is part of it... You also have to make sure you're converting BB/FF runes with festering and applying diseases/keeping them rolling whenever you have max AP/mastery/crit from procs - DKDOTS is an awesome addon for this.

Currently I think between Rallying cry and Skull banner warrior wins out. Mass grip is really nice but we have 1 + 2 Vortex typhoons for mass add control, and void zone doesn't seem to be much of a help at all.

My main question here is the fun side. I work full time so leveling both is a little out of the question and I rarely have time for PTR testing. I know that neither are a GCD locked class and I don't really mind that, but how do you guys feel when raiding as DPS? Is it a 'complex'* rotation? Is there a lot of min-maxing?

* as complex as wow rotations get

Something to note is that the GCD for DKs is 1 second, which makes playing it a hell of a lot more fun than other classes. When I go play any other class the 1.5 sec GCD blows my mind how slow it is. IMO this is what makes DKs fun to play, especially in DW + BT where you are almost GCD locked.

Something to note is that the GCD for DKs is 1 second, which makes playing it a hell of a lot more fun than other classes. When I go play any other class the 1.5 sec GCD blows my mind how slow it is. IMO this is what makes DKs fun to play, especially in DW + BT where you are almost GCD locked.

The only other classes with a 1.5 GCD are Warriors, Paladins, and Enhancement. Casters' GCD is affected by haste so they typically have lower than 1.5.

It's could've and would've. Not could of and would of. Not sure when "of" started meaning "have," but everyone who thinks it does needs to go back to school.

My main question here is the fun side. I work full time so leveling both is a little out of the question and I rarely have time for PTR testing. I know that neither are a GCD locked class and I don't really mind that, but how do you guys feel when raiding as DPS? Is it a 'complex'* rotation? Is there a lot of min-maxing?

Well for leveling, all factors of time being considered, obviously DK will be the "fastest" as you get a nice head start. Slap some BoAs, Blood spec and just burn through levels. I jumped on my Blood spec DK (level 86) and literally was shocked at how FUN and EASY questing was. (This is coming after just grinding a Spriest to 90)... 20+ mobs, no problem.

I do enjoy warrior DPS and mobility however the class is fairly dull, just in my opinion, overall... Arms is getting a few 5.2 tweaks, hopefully making it competitive again or at least bringing it close to Fury.

The only other classes with a 1.5 GCD are Warriors, Paladins, and Enhancement. Casters' GCD is affected by haste so they typically have lower than 1.5.

Except when you cast a spell as a caster you are typically waiting on a 1.5+ sec cast so the GCD is moot. Next time you are in a raid, look at the actions per minute breakdown on your recount/skada meter. DKs and multidot classes like warlocks are almost always far ahead of anyone else.

Get Quartz, pay attention to the swing timer. Put it somewhere highly visible. So not start a FS until after a melee attack. This is what separates DK's from each other. Don't want Quartz? Look at the number on your screen, only swing after you see a white hit. They're not hard to spot.

This is wrong. You should be completely ignoring KM in PvE.

Warriors have a 1.5s GCD, and are GCD-locked, but some of their abilities have a 1.0s GCD with procs. Wild Strike now, and Overpower in 5.2. Same deal with Ret, they also have a base 1.5s GCD but Sanctity of Battle scales their melee GCD with haste for many of their abilities. Enhance has a straight-up 1.5s melee GCD, but uses a lot of spells rotationally, and the spell GCD always scales with haste.

That's not entirely accurate. You can make DK priorities quite complicated indeed by picking talents like Plague Leech and (non-macroed) Blood Tap. But if you don't want to deal with that stuff, you can choose alternative talents and have a relatively easy time of it with a small performance loss.

TL;DR Question: How are DK's looking in 5.2? Is unholy playable or is frost still the way forward (do either classes have their advantages)? How are the rotations to play? is there much to watch? What are the major weaknesses? Impressions, perspectives etc welcome!

All the DPS specs should be "good" in pve for 5.2 It's looking like single target will be fairly close in 5.2, tho it's too soon to be able to tell which will be ahead since boss mechanics and number tweaks have yet to come out. Currently all the specs can do decent cleave/AoE, with DW frost being the strongest, and also easiest to do, since they dont really have to change single target priority. DW frost should continue to be the strongest of the 3 in terms of this, unless number tweaks end up strongly favoring UH.

In terms of playstyle, I much prefer Unholy. There is a great synergy between so many of your skills, and I find it rewarding when you can get it right. This is a personal opinion, but I also find unholy to be better in terms of "skill" translating to better performance. I feel like the choices I make as unholy have a greater impact on my performance, whereas Frost feel more like just-hit-the-buttons-when-they-light-up, and it seems a bit more robotic to do play frost, for me. Im not saying Unholy is the equivalent of naxx affliction locks, or even sub rogue from cata, but for me its the most engaging of the dk dps specs.